Category: Activism

This is not an article about the beauty of the universe or the beauty of arts. This may not even be an article about beauty at all. It is about ugliness. Sorry for the disappointing title, it is more catchy that way, believe me. And it will be long. I will use these words as binary exclusive and objective traits : beautiful people – meaning physically attractive, as defined by the standards of our culture – and ugly people – as not fitting these standards. The standards are typically harmonious facial and body features, and they exclude most ethnical features*, disabilities and malformations, disproportionate hights and corpulences to name a few.

If enough people repeat a lie enough times, then the lie becomes part of the culture. When the lie is transmitted through the generations, it becomes tradition.

Traditions are the third reason why a person does not commit to veganism. They are not innate, nor natural, but we learn them from our family and our society. Many of them are not harmful (at least not directly), like policemen’s uniforms, gift exchange on Christmas, or folk art, while others perpetuate archaic immoral behaviours, such as early marriage or female genital mutilations. Being part of a tradition or a culture is often used to justify these transgressions, but it doesn’t make them any less harmful for the victims. Fortunately, our society condemns the examples I gave.

But we still need to open our eyes on many others. Bullfighting, foie gras on Christmas, dog meat festivals in parts of Asia, European hunting traditions, wearing fur … All traditions involving someone’s pain that we were taught to ignore. As children, our instinct was to protect animals and play with them, but our feelings of love towards them were suppressed in favor of capitalism. Not that all children’s acts based on instincts are necessarily good ideas.

This is why I strongly suggest questioning the origins of what we know as true, our habits and traditions, especially if they are destructive. I recently wrote an article on reality* suggesting three sources : our tendency to conform to the group, our research of a social consensus, and the projection of our desires and our perceptions of reality on reality itself.

Reflecting on culture and traditions shapes our critical thinking, open-mindedness, empathy, and is an important step for the evolution of Humanity.

You can click on “Continue reading” if you are interested in my short response to tradition being used as an excuse, and why it is irrelevant.

Before you start reading another of my “judgemental” posts, I would like to make my intentions with this blog a bit clearer. Disclaimer, right. I don’t want to “veganize” you. I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want you to have the same opinions as mine. I also don’t want to lie to you (anymore). I want to make you think, or react. I want to inform you. I want to give you my opinions, so that you know me better. You are as much allowed to learn and to accept, as you are to refute or to ignore what I have to say. Don’t expose yourself only to information that aligns with your opinions.

My blog is not neutral or moderated, and will never be. The essence of it is my own lust for revolutions. However, my intention is not to traumatize, to provoke or to shock. (So no pictures or descriptions of suffering animals. Never.) I am well-aware of the reasons why veganism is more controversial to you than other upcoming topics.

I also don’t expect ANYTHING from you. With this blog, I guess I am the giver. I don’t expect any responses, because usually I already know or imagine how you feel. I don’t expect any change in your behaviour. The reason I shared this blog with you is because I finally trust – immensely – in our friendship and I know that political opinions are not enough to change that, from your point of view and definitely not from mine either. As I said, I most probably already know how you feel, and I still respect and love you. The fact that you become better informed people does not change that whatsoever. If I was afraid to share it before, it was precisely for this reason : I was afraid that once I informed you, I would be disappointed in you (you know, I would “think you are a bad person”. It is all so much more complicated than this simple statement!). Well, I changed my opinion and here you are on my political blog. I understood that after so many years it would take much more to compromise my view of you. I am NO ONE to judge. I am no God, I do not pretend to be all-knowing either.

Whenever you feel like you want to read me, I suggest you to be in the right state of mind (open-mindedness, humility, lust for knowledge, possibility of strong feelings). You are allowed to feel, to release your emotions. You need to question. I do not need your justification because I already know you for so many other things. A justification does not change anything. I still invite you to read my articles for all these reasons, even the ones on veganism because you have nothing to lose, and to maybe reread my article about radicalism with another point of view. I actually have many ideas that are not directly related to this topic and I can’t wait to share them with you!

Click on “Continue reading” to see what I think of ignorance in a concise article. It was one of the first ones I wrote.

I would like – so much – to share with you many of my thoughts and opinions on several topics, and I seem to have trouble finding a good way of introducing simply these things that I have been working on for so long. I have some of your questions up my sleeve, and I hope to surprise you (and myself) with a long interesting article in the upcoming week, that has nothing to do with this one. Meanwhile, I’d like to start a series of 5 short (I promise) articles to present the 5 basic reasons why people are not vegan – to be distinguished from excuses*.

Habit

Do you ever question things you do in your daily life, that were taught to you by your beloved family, or your school ? Surely you must disagree sometimes. If you are questioning social constructs, at some point you must be questioning your habit of eating dead animals. You can certainly find many self-development ressources about changing your habits efficiently, if that is your issue***.

Addictions (mainly to sugar and/or dairy products) may be a bit more difficult to overcome, but in my own experience with both, it does not take long when you truly believe in what you advocate. In the past, I have already tried eating less, or differently, and it was never 100% fructuous as it only involved my own health and my own esthetics. I am no superhuman. But just as for not eating a human corpse, once I know the impact I have, and the amount of victims it involves (even if morally it only takes one), it became almost automatic. When I was tempted by a wonderful desert, it only took a second or two to remind myself of everything it took to make that desert.

In this article, I would like to go back on an excuse of non-vegan people that I have heard. I don’t mean “excuse” in a judgemental way. On the contrary, a lack of information does not make a person bad. However, after observing the thinking process of misinformed people when announcing them “you are vegan”, a pattern is undeniable : a mix of guilt (usually not coming from the vegan person) and survival instinct leads to protecting oneself with excuses. So I won’t call them otherwise. Many convinced and now informed vegans did ask themselves the same questions.

“Plants also feel pain. Killing plants is still killing.”

Assuming that slicing a carrot and the throat of a cow involves the same amount of suffering, it is first important to remember that 16 times more plants (in weigh) are killed in the production of animal products than vegan products. Close to 70% of the deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is linked to cattle ranching. In France, 46% of all plants produced are used to feed the animals to be eaten, while only 26% are for human nutrition. One cow is fed with approximately 70 kg of plants per day! So in order to minimize the killing of all living beings, a plant-based diet is still much more viable than an omnivore one.

However, the assumption made previously – that plants feel pain – lacks substance, and does not justify the actual pain inflicted on non-human animals.

Clicking on “Continue reading” will open two very important sections that I intended to start my article with, but I ended up highlighting the pain “minimization” aspect of the vegan movement.

Do you think being a radical or an extremist is necessary, or is it rather dangerous ? Do you think moderating your speech is the best way for making a change ? I have been called a radical in my opinions and an extremist in my acts. Putting aside the pejorative meaning of these terms, I came to agree that I am radical … and so should everybody else.

I notice the words “radical” and “extreme” are used in a very ignorant way, pejoratively, and so perceived by most people as negative. Radical people pursue a complete reform, they fight an issue at its roots, while extremists hold political views that exceed the ordinary, or the reasonable according to common interpretations. Now that the definitions are settled …

In our society, people are expected to moderate their speech in fear of coming out as intolerant, or narrow-minded. The ruling powers, as represented in mainstream media and educating systems for example, do not encourage us to take positions, and lead us to adopt a passive behaviour. So they cultivate this moderation – or as I like to call it, mediocrity.

Yet moderation does not often lead to real tangible changes. Every social change in History was promoted by radical movements, with ideas that were considered extremist at that time : democracy, racial justice, labor movements, abolitionnist movements …

Revolutions make evolutions.

In fact, being radical means being coherent in your opinions, being logical, upright. It means fighting a problem at its roots, instead of hiding behind “normality” and a moderated speech. Tolerating an opinion that you believe is wrong does not only not lead to progression, but also approves the current state of things.

Actually, extremism is already present everywhere around us. Our opinions are not flexible – not moderated – on murder, on rape, on torture. We are radical about these subjects, because they involve a victim. In some countries, these are accepted by the legislation, but it does not mean we have to tolerate them, and be passive about it. We protest against these practices because it is not their freedom to do so.

One person’s freedom ends where another’s begins.

Our behaviours are extreme as well : (over)consumption is extreme, the life and death conditions of animals are extreme, capitalism is extreme, racism is extreme in some places … Extreme acts are only called so when society decides it, more particularly when it pleases the ego of the privileged.

To summarize, denying our opinions to tolerate the ideas of the privileged is a superficial behaviour that will not solve the problem, but only interfere with the movement. Being radical only means being coherent and logical when you truly believe in something, and it is the least we can do at our level. The real change in mentalities begins with us, through indignation and rebellion, toward the changes we want to see in the system.

Clicking on “Continue reading” will open the original full version of the article, with more precise and illustrated information, and the references that helped me to write it.